Lawmaker calls for medical-error reforms

Medical-error series stirs lawmakers

ERIC NALDER and CATHLEEN CROWLEY, Hearst Newspapers |
August 15, 2009

Mandatory national reporting of medical errors should be a top priority in Congress, said Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, a key subcommittee chairman who helped write the current health care reform legislation.

“Dead by Mistake,” a Hearst Newspapers investigation of medical errors published last week, brought to light an issue that is “right there at the top of the list” of problems that should be solved, McDermott said.

The Hearst investigation showed that even though nearly 200,000 people die each year from medical errors and infections in hospitals throughout the country — and hundreds of thousands more suffer debilitating injuries — there is no concerted effort to track the carnage.

Car accidents, airplane incidents and workplace injuries are regularly accounted for, but there is no national system for tracking deaths from medical care.

Reforms across the U.S.

Around the country, state legislators and other officials reacted to the series by seeking reforms.

• In Connecticut, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, along with the chair of the state Senate's health committee, called for overhauling the state's reporting rules to make data on errors more transparent to consumers.

• In Washington, Democratic State Sen. Karen Keiser, chair of the Senate health committee, said she and a Republican colleague will sponsor legislation to put more teeth into the reporting bill, “making clear that the reporting must be mandatory.”

While hospitals are required to report “adverse events” in the state of Washington, the newspapers' revealed that only a trickle of reports have come in.

Consumer Union, a longtime advocate of reporting, renewed its call for vigorous public disclosure of medical mistakes and allowing patients to see what is happening at their local hospitals.

Backlash from doctors

Nationally, with healthcare Topic A in Congress, timing becomes a key factor in efforts for change.

McDermott said the nation needs public reporting, but the issue must wait until the debate over national health care reform ends.

The issue of patient safety and national reporting is a “hornets' nest” in the current health care debate in Congress because of the fear of backlash from doctors, said McDermott, who is trained as a physician and psychiatrist.

Doctors and medical associations have previously blocked medical error reporting proposals, partly out of fear that it would spur medical malpractice litigation, and partly from a distaste for oversight. McDermott strongly disagrees with them, but respects their influence.

“Frankly, I think the medical associations have not been acting in their best interest by resisting that,” said McDermott, who along with Ron Paul of Texas is the most senior among 15 medical doctors in Congress.

The American Medical Association said it supports the the existing system of voluntary reporting. “The AMA championed the passage of the patient-safety legislation to create a system where health care professionals can report errors in a voluntary and confidential manner so that future system errors can be avoided as we learn from past mistakes,” said Dr. James Rohack, president of the AMA .